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Flesch, R. (1948) .

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Hoaivu Tranle
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Journal of Applied Psychology

. Vol. 32, No. 3 June, 1948

A New Readability Yardstick *


Rudolf Flesch
Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.

In 1943 the writer developed a statistical formula for the objective


measurement of readability (comprehension difficulty) (5, 6). The for-
mula was based on a count of three language elements. average sentence
length in words, number of affixes, and number of references to people.
Since its publication, the formula has been put to use in a wide variety of
fields. For example, it has been applied to newspaper reports (9, 20),
advertising copy (1), government publications (19), bulletins and leaflets
for farmers (3), materials for adult education (4), and children's books
(12). Its validity has been reaffirmed by five independent studies: the
formula ratings of psychology textbooks substantially agreed with ratings
by students and teachers (17); the formula scores rated specially edited
radio news, newsmagazine, and Sunday news-summary copy "more read-
able" than comparable newspaper reports (18); advertisements, rated
"more readable" by the formula, showed higher readership figures (7); and
articles that were simplified with the aid of the formula brought increased
readership in two successive split-run tests (13, 14). Since 1943, a num-
ber of academic institutions have incorporated the formula in the curricu-
lum of courses in composition, creative writing, journalism, and adver-
tising; it has also been used as the basis of several graduate research
projects.
Because of this wide application, it seemed worthwhile to re-examine
the formula and to analyze its shortcomings One of these is to be traced
to the basic structure of the formula; others are the results of difficulties
in its application.
The structural shortcoming of the formula is the fact that it does not
always show the high readability of direct, conversational writing. For
* Samples from the main body of this paper, when tested for readability by the
method here proposed, had an average "reading ease" score of 30 and a "human interest"
score of 0. Presumably, the paper is easier to read than most other articles appearing
in scientific journals. The section, "The Formulas Restated," which contains directions
for users of the formulas, has a "reading ease" score of 79 and a "human interest"
score of 42—which puts that portion of the article in the class of a good cookbook.
221
222 Rudolf Flesch

example, in the study of psychology texts mentioned above (17), the score
of Koffka's Principles of gestall psychology ("the students' choice for un-
readability") was 5.4 ("difficult"); yet William James' Principles of
psychology, a classic example of readability, rated 6 0 (bordering on "very
difficult"). Similarly, the formula consistently rates the popular Reader's
Digest more readable than the sophisticated New Yorker magazine, al-
though many educated readers consider the Reader's Digest dull and the
sprightly New Yorker ten times as readable.
Aside from that, the practical application of the formula led to several
minor misinterpretations. Sentence length, for instance, is the element
with the heaviest weight; it is also the easiest to measure. As a result,
this feature of the formula is often overemphasized, sometimes to the
exclusion of the others—as in the directives that have been issued to staff
writers of the Associated Press and the New York Times, recommending
the use of shorter sentences in "leads " On the other hand, the second
element—number of affixes—seems often difficult to apply; users of the
formula found this count particularly tedious and admitted to uncer-
tainty in spotting affixes The third element—references to people—
raised no such questions; but it was sometimes felt to be arbitrary and the
underlying principle was often misunderstood.
In addition, many people found it hard to get used to the scoring
system, which generally ranges from 0 ("very easy") to 7 ("very dif-
ficult"). Also, the average time needed to test a 100-word sample is six
minutes (4) This makes the application of the formula considerably
faster than that of earlier formulas, which required reference to word
lists (e.g. Gray-Leary (8) or Lorge (10)), but it is still too long for prac-
tical use.
The revision of the formula presented in this paper is an attempt to
overcome these shortcomings and make the formula a more useful in-
strument.
Procedure
The criterion used in the original formula was McCall-Crabbs' Stand-
ard test lessons in reading (11) The formula was so constructed that it
predicted the average grade level of a child who could answer correctly
three-quarters of the test questions asked about a given passage. Its
multiple correlation coefficient was R = .74. It was partly based on
statistical findings established in an earlier study by Lorge (10).
For many obvious reasons, the grade level of children answering test
questions is not the best criterion for general readability. Data about
the ease and interests with which adults will read selected passages would
be far better. But such data were not available at the time the first
formula was developed, and they are still unavailable today. So McCall-
A New Readability Yardstick . 223

Crabbs' Standard test lessons are still the best and most extensive criterion
that can be found; therefore they were used again for the revision.
In reanalyzing the test passages, the following elements were used:
(1) Average Sentence Length in Words. The same element was used
in the previous formula, but the correlation coefficient used was taken
from Lorge's earlier findings In the present study this coefficient was
recomputed.
(2) Average word length in syllables, expressed as the number of syl-
lables per 100 words The hypothesis was that this measure would
furnish results similar to the affix count in the earlier formula. Syllables
are obviously easier to count than affixes since this work can be reduced
to a mechanical routine.
(3) Average Percentage of "Personal Words " The same element was
used in the earlier formula However, the opportunity was used to test
a clarified definition, which made no significant difference in correlation
The new definition was stated as follows All nouns with natural gender;
all pronouns except neuter pronouns; and the words people (used with the
plural verb) and folks
(4) Average Percentage of "Personal Sentences " This new element
was designed to correct the structural shortcoming of the earlier formula,
mentioned above By hypothesis, it tests the conversational quality and
the story interest of the passage analyzed. It was defined as the per-
centage of the following sentences Spoken sentences, marked by quota-
tion marks or otherwise; questions, commands, requests, and other
sentences directly addressed to the reader, exclamations; and grammati-
cally incomplete sentences whose meaning has to be inferred from the
context
To make the prediction more accurate, 13 of the 37C McCall-Crabbs'
passages that contained poetry or problems in arithmetic were omitted
m the count of the first two elements, which are designed to test solely
prose comprehension. However, these 13 passages were retained in the
count of the last two elements, which are designed to test human interest
Following the procedure m the earlier study, intercorrelations were
then computed. However, multiple correlation of the four elements
with the criterion showed no significant gain in prediction value over
the earlier formula in spite of the significant prediction value of the addi-
tional fourth element by itself (r = — 27). Therefore, two multiple-
correlation regression formulas were computed: one using the first two
elements and one using the last two This procedure had the advantage
of giving independent predictions of the reading ease and the human in-
terest of a'given passage
224 Rudolf Flesch

Finally, the resulting twin formulas were expressed in such a way that
maximum readability (in both formulas) had a value of 100, and minimum
readability a value of 0. This was done to make the scores more readily
understandable for the practical user.

Findings
The intercorrelations, means, standard deviations, and regression
weights found are shown in Tables 1, 2, and 3. The following symbols
were used: wl for word length (syllables per 100 words), si for sentence

Table 1
Correlations, Means, Standard Deviations, and Regression Weights
of Word and Sentence Length

si CM X 8 0
wl .4644 .6648 134 2208 13 6845 .5422
si — .5157* 16 5213 5.5509 2639

* After the preparation of this paper two articles appeared that pointed out a com-
putational error affecting the writer's original formula (Dale, E. and Chall, Jeanne S
A formula for predicting readability. Educ. Res Bull, Ohio St. Univ , 1948, 27, 11-20,
28, Lorge, I. The Lorge and Flesch readability formulae a correction. Sch & Soc ,
1948, 67, 141-142) The error concerned the correlation coefficient between sentence
length and the criterion, which had originally been reported by Lorge as .6174, the
writer, acknowledging his debt to Lorge, used that figure without recomputation The
corrected correlation coefficient is now reported as .4681 by Dale and Chall, and as
.467 by Lorge, this corresponds closely to the figure of 5157 reported in Table 1, con-
sidering the fact that the writer now used a slightly better criterion of 363 passages for
sentence length In other words, the formula presented in this paper incidentally
and independently also corrects the error found by Dale and Chall and by Lorge.

Table 2
Correlations, Means, Standard Deviations, and Regression Weights
of Personal Words and Sentences

ps C» X s 0
pw .2268 - 3881 7 3457 5 5175 -.3446
ps — -.2699 29.5745 35.5822 -.1917

length in words, pw for percentage of "personal words," ps for percentage


of "personal sentences," C60 for the average grade of children who could
answer one-half of the test questions correctly, and Cn for the average
grade of children who could answer three-quarters of the test questions
correctly.
A New Readability Yardstick 225

Table 3
Means a n d Standard Deviations of Two Criteria

CM 5 4973 1 3877
Cn 7 3484 2 1345

The two regression formulas based on these correlations are


Formula A (for predicting "reading ease"). RE = 206.835 - .846 wl
- 1 015 si.
The scores computed by this formula have a range from 0 to 100 for
almost all samples taken from ordinary prose A score of 100 corresponds
to the prediction that a child who has completed fourth grade will be
able to answer correctly three-quarters of the test questions to be asked
about the passage that is being rated; in other words, a score of 100 in-
dicates reading matter that is understandable for persons who have com-
pleted fourth grade and are, in the language of the U. S. Census, barely
"functionally literate." The range of 100 points was arrived at by
multiplying the grade level prediction by 10, so that a point on the formula
scale corresponds to one-tenth of a grade However, this relationship
holds true only up to about seventh grade; beyond that, the formula
under-rates grade level to an increasing degree Finally, the formula—
which predicted grade level and, therefore, difficulty—was "turned
around" by reversing the signs to predict "reading ease." (Before this
transformation, the formula read. C7i = .0846 wl + .1015 si — 5.6835.)
The multiple correlation coefficient of this formula is R = .7047.
Formula B (for predicting "human interest"). HI = 3.635 pw
+ .314 ps.
Scores computed b}' this formula, too, have a range from 0 to 100.
A score of 100 has the same meaning as in Formula A. It indicates read-
ing matter with enough human interest to suit the reading skills and
habits of.a barely "functionally literate" person. A score of 0, however,
means here simply that the passage contains neither "personal words"
nor "personal sentences", in contrast to Formula A, the two elements
counted here may be totally absent Since the zero point could be fixed
in this way, the scoring was arrived at by dividing the range between 0
(absence of both elements) and 100 (prediction of completed fourth grade)
by 100 The formula therefore contains no statistical constant. The
signs were reversed in the same fashion as in Formula A. (Before trans-
formation, this formula read: C7b = - 1333 pw - .0115 ps + 8.6673.)
The multiple correlation coefficient of this formula is R = 4306.
Since the correlations of three of the four elements with the criterion
226 RvdolJ Flesch

Cm were higher than those with the criterion Cn, the multiple correlation
with the criterion C^ was computed first. As a second step, the values
so found were used to predict criterion C7&, since it seemed obviously
more desirable to predict 75% comprehension than 50% comprehension.
The correlation between the word length factor (syllable count) and
the corresponding affix count in the earlier formula was found to be
r = 87. For practical purposes the two measures may therefore be
considered equivalent.
The number of affixes per 100 words (a) can be predicted from the
syllable count (wl) by the formula* a — .6832 wl — 66.6017. Con-
versely, the number of syllables per 100 words (wl) can be predicted from
the number of affixes (a) by the formula • wl = 1 49 a + 94.56

Comment
It is hoped that the two new formulas will prove more useful than the
earlier formula. Formula A alone, with a correlation coefficient of .70,
has almost as high a prediction value as the combined earlier formula
whose correlation coefficient was .74. Formula B has a much lower
correlation coefficient of .43 and, accordingly, does not seem to contribute
much to the measurement of readability It should be remembered,
however, that because of the criterion used, Formula B predicts only
the effect of the two "human interest" elements on comprehension; in
other words, the correlation coefficient shows only to what extent human
interest in a given text will make the reader understand it better. The
real value of this formula, however, lies in the fact that human interest
will also increase the reader's attention and his motivation for con-
tinued reading
In addition, the two new formulas will be more useful for the teaching
of writing, since the added factor and the division into two parts will
show specific faults in writing more clearly.
The significance of Formula A will be more easily understood when it
is realized that the measurement of word length is indirectly a measure-
ment of word complexity (as mentioned above, the correlation is r — 87)
and that word complexity in turn is indirectly a measurement of ab-
straction the correlation between the number of affixes and that of ab-
stract words was found to be .78 (5). Similarly, the measurement of
sentence length is indirectly a measurement of sentence complexity
In two independent studies the correlation between these two factors
was found to be 775 (8) and .72 (15). Sentence complexity, in turn,
may again be considered as a measure of abstraction. Formula A, there-
fore, is essentially a test of the level of abstraction.
A New Readability Yardstick 227

It seems hardly necessary to prove the importance of human interest


in reading, as tested by Formula B. That people are most interested
in other people is an old truism. And the readability value of written
dialogue, as tested by the added element, is well described in the following,
oddly parallel quotations from a printer and a novelist: "Have you ever
watched people at a library selecting books for home reading? Other
things being equal, if they see enough pages that . . . promise interest-
ing dialogue, they are much more apt to put the book under their arm
and walk away with it, than if they see too many solid pages . . which
always suggest hard work" (16). '"What is the use of a book without
pictures or conversations?' thought Alice just before the White Rabbit
ran by, in condemnation of the book her sister was reading, and this
childish comment is supported by novel-readers of all degrees of in-
telligence Long close paragraphs of print are in themselves apt to
dismay the less serious readers and their instinct here is a sound one, for
an excess of summary and an insufficiency of scene in a novel make the
story seem remote, without bite, second-hand. . . . A great part of the
vigor, the vivacity and the readability of Dickens derives from his in-
numerable interweavings of scene and summary; his general method is
to keep summary to the barest essential minimum, a mere sentence or
two here and there between the incredibly fertile burgeoning of his
scenes" (2).
In preliminary tests of the formulas, the following results were found:
When the newly isolated fourth element ("personal sentences") was

Table 4
Comparative Analysis of The New Yorker (October 26, 1946) and the
Reader's Digest (November, 1946)

New Yorker Reader's Digest

Old Formula.
Average sentence length in words 20 16
Affixes per 100 words 36 34
Personal words per 100 words 10 8
Readability score 3 59 3.05
New Formula A:
Average sentence length in words 20 16
Syllables per 100 words 148 145
"Reading ease" score 61 68
New Formula B.
Personal words per 100 words 10 8
Personal sentences per 100 sentences 39 15
"Human interest" score 49 34
228 Rudolf Flesch

applied to the psychology texts by Koffka and James mentioned above


(17), it was found that the percentage of "personal sentences" in Koffka
was negligible (4%), whereas in James's first volume it was 16% and in
his second volume 10%. A striking example of this difference in style
is the following of James's "personal sentences": "Ask half the common
drunkards you know why it is that they fall so often prey to temptation,
and they will say that most of the time they cannot tell." This sentence
shows well the aspect of readability that eluded the earlier formula.
When the old and the new formulas were applied to two random copies
of the New Yorker (October 26, 1946) and the Reader's Digest (November
1946), the results were as shown in Table 4.
As can be seen, the old formula rated the Reader's Digest significantly
more readable than the New Yorker; the new formula A also shows that
the Reader's Digest is significantly easier to read. But the new formula
B clearly shows a large difference in human interest in favor of the
New Yorker.
The Formulas Restated
For practical application, the formulas may be restated this way:
To measure the readability ("reading ease" and "human interest") of
a piece of writing, go through the following steps:
Step 1. Unless you want to test a whole piece of writing, take samples.
Take enough samples to make a fair test (say, three to five of an article
and 25 to 30 of a book). Don't try to pick "good" or "typical" samples.
Go by a strictly numerical scheme. For instance, take every third
paragraph or every other page. Each sample should start at the be-
ginning of a paragraph.
Step 2 Count the words in your piece of writing or, if you are using
samples, take each sample and count each word in it up to 100. Count
contractions and hyphenated words as one word. Count as words
numbers or letters separated by space
Step 3. Count the syllables in your 100-word samples or, if you are
testmg a whole piece of writing, compute the number of syllables per
100 words. If in doubt about syllabication rules, use any good dictionary.
Count the number of syllables in symbols and figures according to the way
they are normally read aloud, e.g two for $ ("dollars") and four for 1918
("nineteen-eighteen"). If a passage contains several or lengthy figures,
your estimate will be more accurate if you don't include these figures in
your syllable count. In a 100-word sample, be sure to add instead a
corresponding number of words in your syllable count. To save time,
count all syllables except the first in all words of more than one syllable
A New Readability Yardstick 229

and add the total to the number of words tested. It is also helpful to
"read silently aloud" while counting.
Step 4- Figure the average sentence length in words for your piece
of writing or, if you are using samples, for all your samples combined.
In a 100-word sample, find the sentence that ends nearest to the 100-
word mark—that might be at the 94th word or the 109th word. Count
the sentences up to that point and divide the number of words in those
sentences by the number of sentences In counting sentences, follow
the units of thought rather than the punctuation, usually sentences are
marked off by periods; but sometimes they are marked off by colons or
semicolons—like these. But don't break up sentences that are joined
by conjunctions like and or but.
Step 5. Figure the number of "personal words" per 100 words in
your piece of writing or, if you are using samples, in all your samples com-
bined. "Personal words" are: (a) All first-, second-, and third-person
pronouns except the neuter pronouns it, its, itself, and they, them, their,
theirs, themselves if referring to things rather than people, (b) All words
that have masculine or feminine natural gender, e.g Jones, Mary, father,
sister, iceman, actress. Do not count common-gender words like teacher,
doctor, employee, assistant, spouse. Count singular and plural forms,
(c) The group words people (with the plural verb) and folks
Step 6. Figure the number of "personal sentences" per 100 sentences
in your piece of writing or, if you use samples, in all your samples com-
bined. "Personal sentences" are: (a) Spoken sentences, marked by quo-
tation marks or otherwise, often including so-called speech tags like "he
said" (e.g. "I doubt it."—We told him. "You can take it or leave it."—
"That's all very well," he replied, showing clearly that he didn't believe
a word of what we said). (b) Questions, commands, requests, and other
sentences directly addressed to the reader (c) Exclamations, (d)
Grammatically incomplete sentences whose full meaning has to be in-
ferred from the context (e g. Doesn't know a word of English.—Hand-
some, though—Well, he wasn't.—The minute you walked out). If a
sentence fits two or more of these definitions, count it only once. Divide
the number of these "personal sentences" by the total number of sen-
tences you found in Step 4.
Step 7. Find your "reading ease" score by inserting the number of
syllables per 100 words (word length, wl) and the average sentence length
(si) in the following formula:
R.E. ("reading ease") = 206.835 - 846 wl - 1.015 si
The "reading ease" score will put your piece of writing on a scale be-
tween 0 (practically unreadable) and 100 (easy for any literate person).
230 Rudolf Flesch

Step 8. Find your "human interest" score by inserting the percentage


of "personal words" (pw) and the percentage of "personal sentences" (ps)
in the following formula:
H.I. ("human interest") = 3.635 pw + .314 ps
The "human interest" score will put your piece of writing on a scale
between 0 (no human interest) and 100 (full of human interest)
In applying the formulas, remember that Formula A measures length
(the longer the words and sentences, the harder to read) and Formula
B measures percentages (the more personal words and sentences, the
more human interest).
Roughly, "reading ease" scores will tend to follow the pattern shown
in Table 5.
"Human interest" scores will follow the general pattern shown in
Table 6.
Table 5
Pattern of "Reading Ease" Scores
"Reading Ease" Description Typical Syllables Average Sentence
Score of Style Magazine per 100 Words Length in Words
0 to 30 Very difficult Scientific 192 or more 29 or more
30 to 50 Difficult Academic 167 25
50 to 60 Fairly difficult Quality 155 21
60 to 70 Standard Digests 147 17
70 to 80 Fairly easy Shck-fiction 139 14
80 to 90 Easy Pulp-fiction 131 11
90 to 100 Very easy Comics 123 or less 8 or less

Table 6
Pattern of "Human Interest;" Scores

"Human Percentage of Percentage of


Interest" Description Typical Personal Personal
Score of Style Magazine Words Sentences
0 to 10 Dull Scientific 2 or less 0
10 to 20 Mildly interesting Trade 4 5
20 to 40 Interesting Digests 7 15
40 to 60 Highly interesting New Yorker 11 32
60 to 100 Dramatic Fiction 17 or more 58 or more

Sample Application
As an example of the application of the new formulas, two recent
descriptions of the "nerve-block" method of anesthesia will be used.
A New Readability Yardstick 231

By an odd coincidence, these two variations upon a theme appeared within


the same week in Life (October 27, 1947) and The New Yorker (October
25, 1947) The Life story served as text accompanying a series of
pictures; it is straight reporting, not particularly simple, and lacks human
interest (which was supplied by the pictures). The New Yorker passage
is part of a personality profile, vivid, dramatic, using all the tricks of the
trade to get the reader interested and keep him in suspense.
From Life.
Except in the field of surgery, control of pain is still very much in the
primitive stages. Countless thousands of patients suffer the tortures of cancer,
angina pectons and other distressing diseases while their physicians are helpless
to relieve them. A big step toward help for these sufferers is now being made
with a treatment known as nerve-blocking. This treatment, which consists
of putting a "block" between the source of pain and the brain, is not a new
therapy But its potentialities are just now being realized. Using better
drugs and a wider knowledge of the mechanics of pain gained during and since
the war, Doctors E A Rovenstine and E. M Papper of the New York Univer-
sity College of Medicine have been able to help two-thirds of the patients
accepted for treatment in their "pain clinic" at Bellevue Hospital
The nerve-block treatment is comparatively simple and does not have
serious aftereffects It merely involves the injection of an anesthetic drug
along the path of the nerve carrying pain impulses from the diseased or injured
tissue to the brain. Although its action is similar to that of spinal anesthesia
used in surgery, nerve block generally lasts much longer and is only occasionally
used for operations The N. Y U. doctors have found it effective in a wide
range of diseases, including angina pectons, sciatica, shingles, neuralgia and
some forms of cancer. Relief is not always permanent, but usually the injec-
tion can be repeated Some angina pectons patients have had relief for periods
ranging from six months to two years. While recognizing that nerve block
is no panacea, the doctors feel that results obtained in cases like that of Mike
Ostroich (next page) will mean a much wider application in the near future
From The New Yorker:
. . Recently, [Rovenstine] devoted a few minutes to relieving a free
patient in Bellevue of a pain in an arm that had been cut off several years
before The victim of this phantom pain said that the tendons ached and
that his fingers were clenched so hard he could feel his nails digging into his
palm Dr. Rovenstine's assistant, Dr. E M Papper, reminded Rovenstine
that a hundred and fifty years ago the cure would have been to dig up the
man's arm, if its burial place v. as known, and straighten out the hand Roven-
stine smiled "I tell you," he said. "We'll use a two-percent solution of
procaine, and if it works, in a couple of weeks we'll go on with an alcohol
solution. Procaine, you know, lasts a couple of weeks, alcohol six months or
longer. In most cases of this sort, I use the nerve block onginated by Labat
around 1910 and improved on in New Orleans about ten years back, plus one
or two improvisations of my own " (Nerve blocking is a method of anes-
thetizing a nerve that is transmitting pain.) . .
The man with the pain in the nonexistent hand was an indigent, and
Rovenstine was working before a large gallery of student anesthetists and
visitors when he exorcised the ghosts that were paining him. Some of the
spectators, though they felt awed, also felt inclined to giggle. Even trained
anesthetists sometimes get into this state during nerve-block demonstrations
because of the tenseness such feats of magic induce in them. The patient,
232 Rudolf Flesch

thin, stark-naked, and an obvious product of poverty and cheap gin mills,
was nervous and rather apologetic when he was brought into the operating
theatre. He lay face down on the operating table. Rovenstine has an easy
manner with patients, and as his thick, stubby hands roamed over the man's
back, he gently asked, ''How you doing?" "My hand, it is all closed together,
Doc," the man answered, startled and evidently a little proud of the attention
he was getting. "You'll be O.K soon," Rovenstine said, and turned to the
audience. "One of my greatest contributions to medical science has been the
use of the eyebrow pencil," he said He took one from the pocket of his white
smock and made a series of marks on the patient's back, near the shoulder of
the amputated arm, so that the spectators could see exactly where he was
going to work. With a syringe and needle, he raised four small weals on the
man's back and then shoved long needles into the weals. The man shuddered
but said he felt no pain Rovenstine then attached a syringe to the first
needle, injected the procaine solution, unfastened the syringe, attached it to
the next needle, injected more of the solution, and so on. The patient's face
began to relax a little. "Lord, Doc," he said. "My hand is loosening up a
bit already." "You'll be all right by tonight, I think," Rovenstine said.
He was.
A comparative analysis of these two passages is shown in Table 7.
The two passages furnish a good illustration of the stylistic features
measured and emphasized by the two new formulas.

Table 7
Comparative Analysis of Treatment of Same Theme in Life and The New Yorker
Life New Yorker
(290 words) (495 words)
Old Formula
Average sentence length in words 22 18
Affixes per 100 words 48 35
Personal words per 100 words 2 11
Readability score 5.16 3.20
New Formula A
Average sentence length in words 22 18
Syllables per 100 words 165 145
"Reading ease" score 46 66
New Formula B:
Personal words per 100 words 2 11
Personal sentences per 100 sentences 0 41
"Human interest" score 7 53

Received November 3, 1947.

References
1. Alden, J. Lots of names—short sentences—simple words Printer's Ink, June 29,
1945, 21-22
2. Bentley, Phyllis. Some observations on the art of the narrative. New York: Mac-
millan, 1947.
A New Readability Yardstick 233
3. Cowing, Amy G. They speak his language. / . Home Earn., 1945, 37, 487-489.
4 Fihe, Pauline J., Wallace, Viola, and Schulz, Martha, compilers. Books for adult
beginners, grades I to VII. Rev. ed. Chicago: American Library Association,
1946
5. Flesch, R. Marks of readable style, a study in adult education New York: Bur. of
Publ, Teachers Coll., Columbia Univ., 1943 (Contr. to Educ. No. 897.)
6 Flesch, R The art of plain talk. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1946.
7 Flesch, R. How to write copy that will be read. Advertising & Selling, March,
1947, 113ff.
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